


Your Light Will Set Me Free

by ThatDamnKennedyKid



Series: The Monarchy of Gotham [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bat Family, Batfamily Feels, F/M, Female Dick Grayson, Female Kon-El | Conner Kent, mafia!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-16 00:33:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12331929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatDamnKennedyKid/pseuds/ThatDamnKennedyKid
Summary: It was so very easy to get caught up in being Gotham's patriarch. The work could consume his soul. But she would always walk in, arms snaking around his shoulders, fingers wandering down the muscles of his chest, and it would vanish from his mind. She alone kept him together, competent, sane.For her, and her alone, he was very weak.





	Your Light Will Set Me Free

The entire dress glittered. 

It was a floor-length, shape-fitted gown covered completely in little glass beads sewn over black cloth. It left her shoulders bare, the top of the dress stopping an inch and a half below her collarbones. The sleeves were very fitted, ending in a triangle of fabric that looped around her middle finger. The top of the sleeve and two inches below the top hem were covered in sapphire beads. 

It was the only splash of colour on her otherwise monochrome look and there was no mistaking what it meant. 

Her hair was pinned up tonight. Not curled, just tied at the nape of her neck and held aloft with an ornate black clip, her hair fanned out around it and bobbing gently about her shoulders when she walked or laughed. Her makeup was dark, her eyes lined sharply, her lashes darkened, her shadow seductive. Her nails were left unpainted, but manicured neatly. The slit along the side of the dress, halting a mere inch below where he knew her panties began, revealed a beautiful pair of Alexander McQueens. Simple black, closed toe, strap about the ankle and elegant wine glass stem heel. They, too, were littered in little false gems, glittering in the low light of the ballroom. 

She was a vision.

He remembered the whispers the first time he brought her to one of these events after their time apart. 

_"Is that . . . ?"_

_"I think it is."_

_"I thought he was going to come with his fiance."_

_"She is his fiance."_

_"What?! He practically raised the girl!"_

_"I know, I know. I don't know what's happened between them."_

_"I wonder if he has something over her."_

_"Older men take young wives all the time."_

_"Usually a divorce is first."_

_"True."_

_"Shouldn't he think of her as his daughter? He would have had to explain to her what her period was."_

The truth was only slightly less ludicrous than the rumour. He had taken her in after her parents had been killed, most definitely. They had been companions, friends even, of a sort. But he had never replaced her father and she had never been his daughter. She had been his equal from the beginning, as strange as it sounds to be equal to a ten year old. He chuckled remembering when she came to him with questions about her reproductive system, recalling the distinct lack of patience she had for him shying away from the subject. She had been eleven.

She also had not lived with him up until their engagement. She'd gone off at eighteen, to Bludhaven, and made a name for herself. She came into her womanhood away from him for specifically this reason. Three years she was gone with only minimal contact. He adopted a teenager in that time. 

She came back from Bludhaven with her own syndicate at twenty-one. She offered to join their forces with a carefree grin, as if she knew he would say yes. He made a show of thinking it over for three days, to the hour, before he responded. In the meantime, she'd gotten ahold of his new charge. Jason ran to him with tears in his eyes and a fist for his chest. 

_"Why didn't I get to meet her sooner? Oh my God, Bruce, I love her."_

She glanced his way - the first time she had all night - and he knew his queue. He politely made his excuses, wandering over to her benignly before wrapping his arm about her waist. Vaguely, he made their excuses and they made their way out with a quick stop for Tim.

"Headed out then?" The young man chuckled, hair falling stylishly in his eyes. 

"Take me with you." Conner grumbled, picking at non-existent threads in her own dress, swirled in black and red sequins. 

She laughed. "I would, but someone's gotta take care of Tim and it can't be me all the time."

"Isn't that the truth."

"Hey!"

"We've spent too long here already, though." She said, looking away. Conner immediately softened and Tim's smile was gentle. 

"Don't worry. We've got this." Conner assured, nodding resolutely. "Just a few more hours and we can make moves too."

"Just a few more." Tim promised. 

"Before you go, did you see Roy or Jason tonight?"

"They couldn't come." She winked. "Work and all. Someone had to stay behind to do it and you know them."

"Hmm. Lucky bastards."

Tim chuckled again, so soft and affectionate. "Go on. The little devil's probably giving Alfred a run for his money."

"We'll see you two at home." 

* * *

Indeed, the devil was grumpy when they finally got home. 

"You're late." He pouted harshly.

"I know, baby. You know how Mrs. Princeton is about me. Just can't get enough." She replied, pulling her hair out of the updo. "Would you rather have come?"

"God, no." He stuck out his tongue, sitting crossly in the biggest, highest backed chair to be found in the manor. 

"Help Mumma undo this contraption?" She asked playfully, crouching in front of him.

He did so without hesitation - the sooner she was rid of it, the sooner she was his - and with deft hands. He was only six, but he was very good at knowing how to get what he wanted. She slipped from the dress in the middle of the sitting room, bending down to unbuckle the heels. 

"I've spent my whole life doing acrobatics and nothing is more uncomfortable than heels, I swear." She huffed to herself - a ritual she did after an event without fail despite the fact she'd long grown immune to them.

With a laugh, he jumped off the chair and ran over to the desk, coming back with her normal house clothes. She gave him a grateful kiss on the forehead and slipped into the athletic shorts and stolen overlarge shirt. "Thank you, Damian."

"Of course, Mumma." He replied, smartly, face angled up to receive the kiss on his nose with a self-satisfied grin.

"C'mon. I'll put you to bed."

"Okay." He grinned and took hold of her hand. She tossed a grin over her shoulder, at her other man. 

"You can grab the dress for me, right Bruce?"

"Of course, Dick."

She flashed her beautiful smile and walked out of the room, holding their son's hand.

* * *

An hour later, she reappeared in their bedroom, hair slung up in a towel and holding her bra and panties. After adult-only parties for socialites like tonight, she always showered with Damian. The ritual had started when he was too little to understand why she had to be gone and the stress overwhelmed his system. It was likely to continue until he was in his tweens, until he felt the need for privacy.

"He settle down?"

"Out like a light." She affirmed, pulling off the towel and tossing it into the hamper. The shirt hung off one shoulder. 

He, too, had showered and changed in the time she had been gone. No sense in wasting time. 

"Jason and Roy report in yet?" She dropped down onto the bed next to him, wedding band shining in the lamplight. 

"Yes. Harley had the situation in the brothel contained before Jason even got there, though he did remove the men and dispose of their bodies. Only one girl was hurt and it was only a sprain. She'll go to the hostel in the back to recover for a couple of weeks, but nothing other than that. Roy killed off the leader of a rising gang, thinking they could unseat us in the poorer districts. Janice, the one with the abuse boyfriend, called Roy to warn us. Her ex was sniffing around them."

"So, they're dealt with?"

"For now. Janice is spreading the word around the neighbourhood to keep an eye out for them. If they come back, I'll just send Kon to let them know we don't take kindly to their meddling."

She snorted. "Once Roy tells Kon that Janice's ex was skulking around her place again, you mean."

"That too."

With a laugh, she rolled onto her side, stretching languidly like a cat in a sunspot. He reached out without his own permission for her, pulling her over to and on top of him. She laughed again, settling down warmly across his bare chest. 

"You stole my shirt."

"You say that every night."

"And every night it's true."

"Well, I'm feeling just a little too calm right now to tempt you to take it back, but the pro is that you don't work tomorrow, so you can have it back in the morning."

"I wasn't really either." It's a half-truth. He does, in fact, feel the calm she's talking about, but she can set him bring him to attention at a moment's notice. "I'm a patient man."

"That's not true."

"Not when you get me riled, no." He leaned forward to bump their noses. "For anything else, yes."

"You don't see me complaining."

"No, that's reserved for me when you feel that giving me an erection in the middle of a diner party would be the preferred entertainment."

She flushed at that. "Okay, in my defense, I didn't think one flash of my panties would set off your animal hindbrain."

He raised an eyebrow. "They were the purple ones. You know how much I like the purple ones."

She rolled her eyes with a grumble. "I do  _now_."

He pet down her hair, fingers dancing up her side just shy of being ticklish. "Mmm."

"Okay, but you've got this thing you do with your fingers when you squeeze my thighs that turns me into a fire hydrant."

He raised a solitary eyebrow.

"Oh, don't even. You totally know. I can see it in your eyes when you side-glance at me. You squeeze and finger at this one section of my thigh - where you usually leave hickeys - and I can't even help how excited I get. And you do it  _all the time_. Why do you think I dragged you into the bathroom that one night and wound up leaving a smear on your slacks so bad we had to leave?"

"That's right." He acknowledged. That had been an intense ride home, trying to contain her with Alfred driving. Once they got to the bedroom, she had the dress pulled up and him on his knees. Then she'd flipped them over and rode him so hard his vision blurred when he came. He's pretty sure that's the night they conceived Damian.

She made a face. "Yeah,  _that's right._ It was like you made me go into heat."

"Could be worse things."

She gave him a deadpan look. "Few things are more humiliating than wetting yourself in front of aristocracy because your husband just touched your thigh."

"How about getting a very prominent erection at a standing-only party while talking to a board member because your wife glanced down at your crotch from halfway across the ballroom?"

"Heh, okay, you win this round. But just wait - one day you'll get me while we're out on patrol and you'll be really sorry then."

"The costume gets you?"

"And mine doesn't?" She raised an eyebrow. "C'mon, Bruce, everything about you gets me."

He pulled her closer. "I'm glad its a shared sentiment."

She kissed him, nice and slow and sweet, before rolling off him. Wordlessly, they pulled up the covers and slid under them. Her back was to him, his arms around her and his breath along her bare shoulder. 

"Goodnight, Bruce."

"Goodnight, Dick."

* * *

Tim once asked him, shortly after they adopted him, why her name was 'Dick'.

"Her actual name is Richard." He explained gently, holding the preteen boy close on his lap. His night-terrors were powerful. "Her mother and father used to call her Ricki, for short. An old lion tamer liked to call her by another appreviation, Dick, and that was the one that stuck."

"She could get people to call her Ricki now, couldn't she?"

"Ricki is a name that she associates with her parents and them alone. Like Timmy for you. You would rather we call you Tim."

The boy halted, hesitant.

"That's okay." He pet his hair, tucking his head under his chin. "You're allowed to have these wants."

"Why did you marry Dick if you raised her?"

"Dick pretty much raised herself. But I married her because I love her. I love her the way a husband loves his wife, not the way a father loves his daughter."

"Does she love you like that too? Like a wife loves a husband?"

"I should think so. She said yes, after all."

Tim nodded, like it was all the answer he needed, and lapsed into a silence that soon became sleep, breaths lined up with the beating of Bruce's heart. 

* * *

Both of the boys had brought home their to-be-fiances to Dick first. 

Hilariously, Tim had been the first one. Their 'nightlife' didn't suit him as much as Wayne Enterprises did, but despite that he found himself in the arms of one of the last people they would have ever expected. 

"This is Conner Kent."

The metahuman had been supremely uncomfortable, her black Superman shirt and jeans looking far too simple next to Tim in his tailored suit. "Uh, hi."

Dick hugged her in return. According to Tim, Kon had gone inhumanly still and the colour had drained from her skin. "Its so lovely to finally meet you. Tim tells me all about his special someone, but its nice to put a face and name to his feelings."

"Mom!" Tim had responded, not thinking about it until afterwards. 

"You're his mom?" Kon had questioned, surprised. 

"Bruce and I adopted him." Dick corrected. "I'm not his biological mother. I've just taken care of him all these years."

"Oh." She shifted a little. "Still, the resemblance is uncanny."

Dick gave a lovely trilling laugh. "You're one more raven in a family full of them. C'mon in."

Jason had taken more time, brought Dick out to meet Roy. They were different. Kon-El was a clone who Superman had dismissed. Roy Harper was Speedy, Green Arrow's sidekick and someone the League knew and associated with. 

"Ma'am." Roy had greeted very formally, reaching out to shake her hand.

"I see." She replied, taking the shake. "You two have been seeing each other for quite some time, then."

"How the hell did you get that from one word and a handshake?" Jason shrieked. 

"He wouldn't be so serious with me if he wasn't so serious about you." She replied, unphased. "He's prepared to pitch himself as no threat from the Justice League, to try and convince me that he's here because he loves you, not because he wants to invade Gotham with the self-righteous boyband in Washington."

Roy blinked, flabbergasted. "Pretty much, yeah."

She clapped his shoulder. "I already know all about your little exit from the Team and the League. Kon-El already told me all about it and your falling out with the League."

"You know Conner?"

She shrugged. "She's dating my other son."

Roy fell back onto a chair. "Wow."

"That doesn't mean I don't want to get to know you." She said. 

"What about the Batman?" Roy ran a hand through his hair. "What am I going to do about him?"

She giggled. "Aww, sweetie, it's cute you think he's the one you had to be afraid of in this situation."

Roy never really got over that moment, but at least meeting Bruce had been easy. His new life as Gotham's Red Arrow was one he never anticipated, but welcomed nonetheless.

"Don't you ever get complaints from Superman?" Roy had asked. Kon just shrugged. 

"All the time, but he complains about everything I do, so who cares? I love Tim and he loves me. That's more than I get from Underwear-Out-Front."

"Green Arrow is relentless in trying to get me to join the League." Roy sighed. "He wants me to come back, keeps telling me I'll be 'forgiven', as if Jason is some kind of  _indiscretion_ on my behalf, like my mask falling off or a name slipping out on comms."

"Oh yeah. Clark keeps telling me Batman and the whole Bat Family are evil." She snorted and sipped the tea Alfred made her. "Willfully ignoring the fact that I moved to Gotham and am engaged to 'evil'."

Roy sighed. "I'm so torn on that. We do bad things, but the new peace and safety can't be overlooked either. Employment has risen, substance abuse has fallen, mortality rates have dropped and crime has all but vanished. Bruce and Dick keep the city impeccably, better that it has ever been, I'd bet. And yet, the League wants to wipe them out, to undo everything they've done. To deliver people like Janice and William back to their abusive exes and Colin back to his weekly 'protection' fee."

"I don't trust them one bit. They're out for themselves, entirely." She snorted. "They don't even treat me like a person with thoughts and feelings, like I'm not even half a being. And I'm someone they should be protecting and helping. But no, treat me like garbage and get fussy when I walk away. I'm not sad to be distanced from them."

Roy sighed. "Yeah. I wouldn't give Jay up for them."

* * *

Bruce blinked awake. The sun was peeking coyly through their curtains, illuminating the ceiling so far. 

Dick shifted in her sleep, murmuring his name and something about Damian's schoolbooks. He smiled softly against the smooth skin of her shoulder, letting his eyelashes flutter for a moment. What a great gift she was to him. The cornerstone of his syndicate, his family, his heart. He wouldn't be nothing without her, but he would certainly be much, much less and he is grateful to her every moment of every day that she chose to be his, would stand by him and all three of their sons no matter what.

He pulled her closer, nuzzling as much as he could before breathing a sigh of relief into her neck and drifting back to sleep.

He loved her so much. So much.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Haha the first time I've joined a fandom without the first fic being very angsty. 
> 
> Let me now what you guys think of it, if there's anything worth continuing.


End file.
